Monday, March 17, 2008

RWB has got the stuff - a very recent performance by Dylan down in Mexico just a few weeks ago. This new arrangement of Highway 61 is amazing. Guess all that listening to the old stuff on his radio show is paying off. He hasn't sounded like this, well, I don't know - I don't think I've heard him like this at all, not in this decade. Now, I realize that it's all a bit of a challenge for the uninitiated (many of you have told me so) - but part of what makes Dylan a genius is not just his writing - which ought to be enough - but his phrasing. He can completely change the meaning of one of his songs by changing the phrasing (which is what great Shakespearean actors do). I haven't heard anything like this - and it's just from a few weeks ago. Guess he really likes Mexico.

Tell you what though, you read all this stuff coming out of the House of Bishops and follow it up with this and suddenly you think, now who really is telling the truth here? What we have coming up from this current tour south of the border - well, this is Dylan, still telling the truth about the human condition - all of it, in biblical proportions.

Oh, by the way - guess who is a son of Abraham - not just in faith, but in life? Once again - Dylan offers not only a searing commentary on the human condition straight through the heartland of America, but he also offers a searing commentary on himself, this son of Abraham Zimmerman. Just who's being sacrificed out there on Highway 61? Dylan seems to turn the spotlight toward himself, but even then with a sly, perhaps impish wink. Just what we need after another meeting of the House of Bishops. And you can dance to it too.

3 comments:

Anon, in the main post click on "RWB" and that will lead you to RWB's website. You'll want to go the main page. I think the new arrangement of Blowin' in the Wind (which I lined to in an earlier article on the House of Bishops) which he did in Mexico is still on the front page.